


Short Circuit

by ivyleaguenerd



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Author has literally once again no idea how to tag, Connor follows the rules, Connor was a good boy in highschool, Connor's a teacher's pet in some sense, Dylan is tired, Dylan literally could not care less, Highschool AU, I feel like ya'll will enjoy this regardless, I love the three of them running a highschool together, M/M, Mitch does the whiny little thing where he gets what he wants, Mitch is a good actor, Mitch is a queen don't question it, Multi, Racoon boy, The teacher is one of those serious jerks, they're in highschool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyleaguenerd/pseuds/ivyleaguenerd
Summary: Mitch realized his mistake on the test a little too late. As in, already turned it in late. Dylan and Connor watch as Mitch solves his own problem in a way that only Mitch would think of going about it.
Relationships: Mitch Marner/Connor McDavid, Mitch Marner/Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome, Mitch Marner/Dylan Strome
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Short Circuit

**Author's Note:**

> tilted after the song Short Circuit, by Daft Punk.

Today was the big day. All hockey aside, today was going to be the day that would make or break them for the semester. The first test in Financial Algebra. 

They had planned this moment out to the very last second they had, as in, the bell beckoning them to their next class. 

Connor was going to sit next to the window because he had the least calculated amount of ADHD like symptoms and was not going to get distracted being there. 

Dylan was going to sit near the door because he didn’t care to lift his head and open his eyes up wide enough to see who was stumbling around in the halls. 

Mitch was put in the middle because he absolutely would get distracted staring out the window and he absolutely would get distracted staring out into the hallway for people he knows to talk to. 

Connor was going to give them each an actual pencil. Not some chewed on, rotted to filth, probably broken in two separate pieces kind of pencil. A full length, one-piece, good eraser, nice pointed pencil, the one that worked for the scantrons. 

Dylan had cold Gatorade in his bag, and it was supposed to be for practice after school. Today, it was going to be for the test, to hype them all up as if it was a hockey game.

Mitch was going to be the soother. No, he wasn’t bringing any physical extras, except his sweet self. Mentally, he was prepared to get them out of any possible cheating fiasco, to save them from any sort of excess stress and panic. 

“Mitch, I’m kind of freaking out, but like, lowkey,” Dylan muttered down towards Mitch, the three walking like the stooges all pressed against one another’s sides. 

“No need to freak out dude, we have only done five sections, and this is only the first test. After this, we have plenty of time in homework and little stupid quizzes to make it up.” Mitch was already working his magic, and he patted Dylan on the back to assure him. 

“Okay but what if the extra credit isn’t nearly half the points as the test is?” Connor did a little eye bulge at Mitch, and he tilted his head like a curious dog. 

“You’re telling me that you don’t do enough homework for this class that would more than cover up a possible bad test grade?” Mitch gave a little sass, it was a gentle jab at the book nerd that Connor was. 

“Okay, but dude, I don’t do shit. I sit down and I maybe take a notebook out, half the time I totally don’t even have a pencil. Not a real one.” Dylan scoffed, mocking his own complacency with the way the flow was. He did try, and he tended to be one of those kids who did well without a lot of studying or practice. The only bad part of his reputation was when he would fall asleep in class. 

“You still do your homework, right?” Mitch had a hand on both of their backs, trying to make sure they all made the right turn to get to the math wing of the building and eventually the bathroom. Avoiding all sorts of passing students and other teachers. 

“Of course. I just don’t think I’d survive the blow of a failed test, like an entirely flunked out test.” Dylan shook his head, letting it hang a bit as he focused more on the tiles while he was walking and less on the faces of his friends. 

“If you fail, I will absolutely not let it happen. Not fully. Also, you’re not going to so we don’t even have to discuss this.” Mitch sighed, shaking his head as if he was ashamed to hear his two closest friends in the world talk so down on themselves. 

“What the hell? So he doesn’t get to fail, but I do? Do you not love me?” Connor scoffed, holding his chest in some sort of mocking level of shock. 

“You are like the little angel on my left shoulder and Dyls is the devil on my right. Of course, I love you both equally, which is exactly why I’m trying to explain how you won’t fail this test.” Mitch shook his head, feeling like maybe he was going to be the one to fail with all the complaining and bickering he would have haunting his thoughts and protruding his abilities to just do the math. 

“How do you think you’ll do, Mitchy?” Both Connor and Dylan asked him at the same time, and the three of them burst out into laughter. 

“I’m thinking about getting some McDonald’s sprites after practice, and playing floor with you guys,” Mitch said softly as soon as he calmed from his little laughing fit. “If you guys are down… around seven… forty-five… tonight?” His voice perked up towards the end of the question, and they had finally entered the math wing in the building. 

“As long as we leave this classroom at exactly three, I’m down.” Connor piped up, and he flashed a little smile at Mitch to give him the comfort of his word. 

“I am not leaving this classroom any later than three unless I fall asleep.” Dylan snorted, and Mitch stifled a laugh. 

“You would fall asleep during a test,” Connor smirked, he was only teasing but Dylan knew it was a realistic possibility. 

“Guys, t-minus like five seconds before we approach,” Mitch warned, and the three were coming way too close to their classroom. To the test, to the big moment of the day. 

“Oh god, I don’t wanna do this,” Dylan groaned and hung his head back. 

“I hate this so much,” Connor added and Mitch just patted their shoulders to encourage a move along. 

“Greetings Mr. Strome, McDavid, and Marner. Now tell me before you enter this classroom, how far do I have to separate the three of you?” The teacher, Mr. Reese held out three tests for each of them, stopping them before they entered the room. 

“No, no, we’ll behave. Promise, we can even pinky promise if you don’t believe us.” Mitch spoke up, knowing he was good at talking to teachers and slyly soothing any questioning from authorities that popped up. All of the authorities at the school loved and adored Mitch, he had a pretty much perfect track record and an effortless way of swooning the guidance staff. So even if he (or his two best friends in the world) did have an issue, the very polite and delightful Mrs. Cash in the main office would resolve it for him. 

The three boys were a little laughable with their pinkies sticking out, and the teacher did not bother to hide the laughing stock that they provided. 

“Fine, but if I see anything at all, sign language, smoke signals, texting, post-it note planes, bent paper clips, and whatnot, I’m sending you directly to the office.” Mr. Reese warned, and the three took their tests and nodded. 

“We’re not cheaters anyways, we’re really bad at being quiet,” Mitch remarked before walking in first, Connor then Dylan trailing behind him. Connor took the window seat as planned, Mitch in the middle and Dylan beside the door. Dylan slugged his hood up, and he pulled his sleeves down. The math wing was the Antarctica of the school because all the technology was here and the technology department was right below them. Connor pulled his sleeves down on his hoodie as well, and he slouched over his desk in his chair. Mitch had his sleeves ready for the cold of the math department, so all he had to do was sit down and take his supplies out. 

“Con, can we have a pencil now?” Dylan muttered, and he held a hand out as he pulled his calculator, and placed it in the right corner of his desk. He also tore out a piece of looseleaf from his math notebook, preparing for the second part of the test where you had to do all of the work and show it. 

“Can you be just a little bit patient and let me get myself entirely situated?” Connor sassed, and Mitch made wide eyes as a reaction to the snide response Dylan got, understanding that it was within his best intentions to remain patient as Connor got himself comfortable. 

“Here,” Connor whispered, passing both Dylan and Mitch a pencil as he used his other hand to rip out a piece of looseleaf from his notebook to use as scrap. Dylan then returned the favor by giving both of them a Gatorade that was still condensing from the departure of his lunchbox. 

“Thank you, and don’t forget, you boys got this.” Mitch gave a little thumbs-up and a small smile. He closed the math notebook he just used to tear his looseleaf out, and he shoved it back into his bag. 

Dylan and Connor returned the thumbs up to Mitch, and they all prepared for the teacher to admit them the right to begin the tests. 

The teacher gave them a nod and started the timer on the desk.

The time passed slowly during the beginning half of the test, but the time really seemed to fly right away from them as they began the longer response questions on the back pages. It was a little more time consuming to go between their scrap sheets and the actual test to write the answers down and rewrite all the steps, more organized. 

Mitch got through the entire bottle of Gatorade by the end of the test, because he propped an elbow up to hold the bottle up over his lips, angling the sports tip down. So all he had to do was sip from it as he desired. Like a guinea pig in a cage, with the little metal straw water bottle system, yes. Connor had been halfway through by the time the test was over, and Dylan drank around third fourths of the bottle all of it by the end of the test. Connor shut his calculator off after he cleared it, and Dylan just tossed his in his bag, while Mitch kept his out. 

From the second that Mitch sat down and glanced over his scrap paper after handing his test in, he felt a pang of fear and sudden regret in his chest but more so in his stomach. He had totally fucked up on that test. He could even pinpoint where it had all gone wrong. 

“I hope you all enjoyed that because that is your first impression you get to make as a student to me. Academically at least. You all can spend the next fifteen minutes studying whatever else you’d like.” Mr. Reese announced from his desk, soon taking the stack of papers and moving them closer to him to begin grading them or at least looking through them. 

“No, no no no, oh no, guys, I-I fucked up, I fucked up bad.” Mitch held his head in his hands, and he pressed the on button for his calculator a few times to get it started. 

“Wait wait, hey whaddya mean?” Dylan asked, leaning towards Mitch’s seat now. 

“What are you talking about? We all did fine,” Connor furrowed his brows and mirrored Dylan, leaning towards Mitch to figure out what he was rambling about. 

“I didn’t read the numbers right in the chart on the second page, and I-I totally fucked it up. It says on my scrap paper 239, not 293 and I know for a fact that for number 15, I put in 293 as my final answer.” 

“Number 15 was 239, you were right on the scrap paper. Are there any other questions you did that on?” Connor pulled Mitch’s scrap paper closer to his side of the desk and took his calculator back out of his bag. Sliding the cover off and getting it started up to double-check Mitch’s scrap paperwork. 

“What are you going to do? I mean, he’s already looking through em’. Is he not?” Dylan gave a bit of concern in his glance at Mitch, and Mitch shook his head as he watched Connor check through the next few problems that were scrambled out on the sheet. 

“You got any good ideas, cause-cause I cannot fail the first test of the year.” Mitch gave wide eyes at Dylan, clenching his teeth as he raised his brows at Dylan. 

“I mean, the work is all here. Maybe turn this in for test corrections?” Connor suggested, but even he sounded entirely unconvinced that it was a good idea. 

“You could just go over there and be honest about your math dyslexia and all that stuff on your little IEP thing and then just, y'know, fix it. Connor’s right, you do have the proof.” Dylan shrugged, and he sat back a bit in his chair. 

“I got an idea. Probably not my best idea, but it’s an idea.” Mitch took his scrap worksheet, and he used the pencil to scribble some crap out on the sides of the margins. 

“What does this idea entail, just outta curiosity?” Dylan glanced over at Connor, who seemed just as nervous as he felt, and then over to Mitch. 

“You’ll see right now,” Mitch slid the chair out from under himself, and he took the scrap paper and calculator over to the teacher’s desk. 

“Oh god. Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Connor whispered to Dylan, and he scooted over to sit right next to Dylan as they turned their heads for the viewing party. 

“Cause it’s Mitch, and it makes sense that he would get whatever he needed from the school using whatever he’s gotta pull together to get it.” Dylan half shrugged, and they both hushed one another as they tried to listen in on the conversation. 

“What’s the problem, Mitch?” Mr. Reese dropped his stack of papers down and looked up at him, his eyes seemed to be void of emotion as he said it. 

Mitch planned on changing that, though. 

“Hi, I-I’m sorry to ask a dumb question like this, but-but it seems that uh, that I wrote some of the wrong answers down on the short answer section, and-and I have them right here on my scrap.” Mitch wasn’t actually nearly as nervous as he seemed. In fact, he wasn’t feeling nervous at all. “I-I just wanted to ask and see, cause-cause I feel like I know what I’m doing and I do pay attention in class, always, y'know, and I respect you, really and truly,” Mitch was upping the ante in the stammering and for his two audience members, it seemed like he might be crying. 

“Holy shit, is he fucking crying?” Dylan whispered to Connor, bulging his eyes towards the scene. 

“I think... I think he’s crying.” Connor confirmed, and he raised his eyebrows. 

“And I would never ask if I-I didn’t have a good reason but uh, I-I’ve been having some issues at home an-and,” Mitch cut himself off with a little bit of a whimper, a huff of air leaving his lungs quickly and a few good sniffles as he leaned his head back and wiped away his tears. There were actual tears. 

Mitch had been actually crying, so much so that he was able to wipe away actual tears that he actually made with his own eyes. This was a literal groundbreaking discovery to his friends, that Mitch would cry over a test but not when his parents argued too often or Connor or Dylan were fighting for weeks longer than necessary. 

“I was just, I totally was sidetracked while taking the test, so I’m super sorry about that,” Mitch paused to take in a bit of a shaky breath, and he sniffled before clearing his throat a little to lower his voice. “And-and I won’t let it happen again, of course, I feel terrible to even be asking this but uh, can I please just fix those few questions? I really mean it, this will never happen again, I just feel so stupid about it, and I want to prove that I can do better than make stupid mistakes, y'know?” Mitch finished his speech, and he sniffled a few times between the silence. 

“I.. I-I’m sorry to hear that, Mitch, and you tell me which ones you got wrong, and we’ll fix them right now.” Mr. Reese looked just as shocked as Dylan and Connor were, as he held his hand out to take Mitch’s scrap paper from him. 

“Thank you so so much, you have no idea how much that means, holy crap,” Mitch let out another intense breath, and he shuddered before pulling his sleeves down over his hands to wipe his eyes a little better, and he slowly made his way around to the side of the desk the teacher sat behind. 

“No problem, just point to whichever ones are wrong and the right answers that you have on the scrap.” Mr. Reese gave another nod at Mitch, who was still using tactics to get away with this whole thing. Such as the big eyes glancing up at his teacher for assurance and permission, and the slight shakes he had when he was turning the page or holding it up. 

It was a fairly quick process, and the teacher stood up from his seat afterward. As he was departing the same time the students were, plus he’d finished helping Mitch right as the bell rang. 

“Thank you sosososo much again, really, it means a lot to me that I can trust you to tell you stuff like that, and that you were so understanding, really, Mr. Reese.” Mitch nodded, receiving a nod and gentle pat to the shoulder from Mr. Reese before taking his calculator and returning to his desk to toss it into his bag. Not to mention, having to deal with both of his entirely dumbfounded friends. 

“No fucking way, are you serious?” Dylan asked, grabbing Mitch’s shoulders and shaking him a bit as they walked through the halls. They were going to pick up all their gear and bags for practice, and of course, they had lockers beside one another. Since middle school, which was the only reason they’d even become such a close-knit group of friends. 

“Mitch, I know for a fact that you did not just cry right in front of a teacher.” Connor grabbed one of Mitch’s shoulders, and he tried to get Mitch to stop beside a wall between some lockers. 

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. What’s the problem?” Mitch was smiling like an asshole, a full shit-eating grin blessed his lips and he had all his pearly whites to show his pride. 

“The master magician of the year. The master of illusory emotions.” Connor scoffed, and Dylan rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t even bother doing all-o-that when I fail a test. I turn it in and sit back down at my test to sleep, and then take the failed test and shove it into my bag.” Dylan chuckled a bit, and he rubbed at the back of his neck. 

“You’re such a good actor. I still am having a super hard time coming to terms with the fact that you just did that, like, so effortlessly. You just started crying! He didn’t even bother trying to be the hardass that he is, and you started crying!” Connor’s voice was getting a little pipsqueak level of high as he exclaimed his shocking revelations. 

“What are you, jealous? Take some notes, or ask me for a favor next time.” Mitch smirked some more, finding it hard to wipe any of his pride off of his face. 

“I think I fall in love with your talents more and more, as the days go by. You’re just amazing, Mitchy!” Dylan said with a smile, some heart eyes, and a high pitched voice. He was mocking some of the puck bunnies they’d hassled together. 

“No Dyls, he’s ridiculous! Ridiculously smart but also, I feel like we should absolutely not be condoning his bad behavior!” Connor gasped, and he gave some stern eyes to Mitch before sliding the glare towards Dylan. He rolled his notebook up and bopped Dylan in the shoulder with it a good few times, lightly.

Dylan took to his shoulder and held it, rubbing it and whimpering dramatically. As if that’d actually hurt. He put on a pair of pouty lips, and he fake sniffled. 

“Con? What if I use my magic to help you out with fixing your schedule? Y'know, it’d be a shame if you had to deal with that totally homophobic English teacher all year...” Mitch used a softer voice, more of a flirty purr to it now. 

“You-You’d do that? Like when? Cause I really want out, like soon.” Connor seemed to be the one begging now, and Dylan just watched the two have their little interaction. 

“Of course. Only if you stop making a big deal of it. Cause if I get in trouble for it, I can’t help you out.” Mitch was still using a bit of a purr to his voice, and he swung his backpack over his shoulder before doing the same with his gear bag. 

“Oh, no, it’s not actually that bad, no of-of course!” Connor felt his face get hot, as he realized the tone of the conversation and the point that Mitch was trying to get across with the tone he was using. 

“Cool, I’ll see you guys at practice?” Mitch’s tone changed entirely, back to regular sort of talk. His attitude made him seem like he was just with some of the bros, on the bench or something. 

The two nodded and blinked a few times, stunned once again by Mitch and his magical ways.


End file.
